Powerful yet so humble’ – Americans gather to say goodbye to Jimmy Carter-BBC
Americans have been gathering to remember Jimmy Carter as a nearly week-long state funeral gets under way for the 39th US president.
Saturday’s procession from Carter’s home in Plains, Georgia, to Atlanta marked the beginning of the six-day public goodbye for the statesman, who passed away last month aged 100.
Carter will be flown to Washington DC on Tuesday where he will lie in state at the US Capitol before a service on Thursday that will feature remarks from former American presidents.
Mourners from the state of Georgia and around the world have gathered in Atlanta to pay their respects.
PoliticsUnited States of America
USA: Jimmy Carter’s six-day state funeral begins
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Six days of funeral events, observances and ceremonies are planned from Atlanta, Georgia, to Washington, DC, to reflect the life of former US President Jimmy Carter.
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A young boy salutes as the hearse carrying the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter moves through Plains, Georgia
The former president’s body will travel from Georgia to Washington for six days worth of commemorations and memorialsImage: Mike Stewart/AP/picture alliance
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Six carefully choreographed days of funeral events in honor of former US President Jimmy Carter got underway on Saturday, starting in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
Carter, who died on December 29 aged 100, served as president from 1977 to 1981 and went on to become the United States’ longest-lived commander-in-chief.
The week-long state funeral began with a procession through the small town of Plains. Secret Service agents from his current and former protective details carried Carter’s coffin, draped in an American flag, to a hearse.
Mourners gathered along the roadside to say their goodbyes, many saluting the motorcade as it made its way past Carter’s boyhood family peanut farm, where a bell was rung 39 times in honor of the country’s 39th president.
“He was a man that didn’t walk around proud; he was an everyday normal person,” local resident William Brown, 71, told the AFP news agency in Plains. “We’re going to miss him.”
Meanwhile, flags were flown at half-mast across the United States as well as at US embassies around the world, and tributes were paid at major sporting and cultural events.
